Hareball

It was bloody cold.

The sort of cold where three of us were lying in the snow, borrowing paint brushes to keep the snow off our cameras as the wind continually blew it back on again. And then there was Kev.

My good friend Kevin Morgans is a world-class photographer himself, and on this particular day he appeared to be struggling to decide which lens he wanted to use. He was constantly changing them in less-than-favourable conditions, wandering around up on the hill, generally looking rather clueless. Not what we'd come to expect from a world-class photographer, but everyone has their moments.

Eventually the snow and wind got into places they shouldn't have done, and we could hear him moaning about water getting into his lens. Meanwhile, three of us stayed in position, lying in the snow, doing what we'd come for. We’d seen an opportunity, and now we had to play the waiting game. A long, cold waiting game. One of those three even had a broken rib. Fair play. Perhaps the conditions helped numb the pain.

It was in these conditions that this mountain hare showed us what it had to endure. Up on a plateau, it sat through blizzard-like conditions, becoming increasingly encrusted in snow. Every half an hour or so it would move to groom itself before settling back into its ball once again.

In the worst conditions, it would wait longer, until the snow and spindrift subsided. And when it eventually moved into that ball position to groom, the snow that had formed an icy crust on its fur fractured across its body, creating what looked like a miniature tectonic plate.

Hence, Hareball.

And this is where Kev would like to claim some credit. He says that, while wandering around the hill in his indecisive state, he somehow spooked the hare into one of its rare movements in the bitter conditions. It then settled down and began grooming, creating the image you see here.

So, despite apparently spending most of the morning changing lenses and complaining about water in them, Kev maintains that he was actually taking one for the team.

I'm still not entirely convinced he wasn't just cocking about.

'Hareball' in colour was Highly Commended by Travel Photographer of the Year in 2022. 'Hareball' in grayscale was Highly Commended by both Asférico in 2020 and María Luisa in 2021.